The passage of time changes things; some parts are erased, others are restored, very little actually stays the same. And yet, perhaps the city will always be remembered as the city, not the small town it was before or the fields of flowers or the very tall trees that came before it, or even the little dots of houses beginning to take over the countryside. Little huts sometimes miles upon miles apart. Sometimes close enough that it doesn't take many steps to talk to the other.
And stepping through old familiar places sometimes feels like stepping into the future, missing the history that allowed this to grow into what it is now. It's an odd feeling, surreal like Zeno's living in a dream despite being fully awake. It's the nervous stutter of a heartbeat when he realizes that the only one holding even a candle's flicker of a memory of those times is him. He's the only one seeing the past in the present, the only one clinging to these things.
Ordinary people aren't written down into history books that are passed on from person to person or studied. Ordinary people doing ordinary things are often just forgotten as time keeps on passing, again and again, over and over. Zeno gulps. That little hut that lit up the forest just by being there no longer remains.
A life built on moments that feel stolen away from time has passed. A soul went up to Heaven, and another stayed behind. It's the fact of life. And Zeno is too full of life if you ask him or the centuries that have passed since then. When he moves by what once was, it's that that he misses. His old village doesn't even concern him anymore. That long since faded into the dirt, trees took back over, people took back over, and everything changed.
He doesn't reminisce or think about that old place much at all. But if he walks just right through here, he can feel Kaya's hand in his, watch the way sunlight used to fall on grass and across trees. Feel time that stretched for an eternity, but only lasted a second, a blip in time.
And he remembers Kaya in the way one remembers a life well lived or someone full of life, that even oncoming death didn't scare that person, just every moment wasn't stolen but lived out fully. Zeno feels lost in familiar places made unfamiliar, but if he walks just far enough in, he can remember where apple trees used to loom, the very ones he climbed again and again, seeking their fruit, offering it down to Kaya, fruit that they'd take home and eat together.
It feels strange always to be back again. Nobody moved the rock, just left a headstone there. Though he knows they don't know what it is. Yet walking up to it is like another goodbye, one that he's never going to say aloud. For him, it's just like a see you tomorrow, because this is all he has here, when he's the only one still on Earth. So, he smiles and kneels down, presses his hands together, just another silent prayer.
It doesn't matter that people walk past him and probably find him strange, or that he's no longer in a place inhabited by trees and not people.
Every day was a gift, one that Kaya had been grateful for every time, especially since Zeno had come to live with her. He didn't start out as a good guest to have he imagines as he remembers that first day, when he woke up to find that he'd been taken care of while he slept, clothes washed, himself changed to something much cleaner and much nicer to wear. And yet, when he thinks back, he remembers his plea to die, and by then, he'd only lived a short time compared to now.
And now, his plea is quieter, more withdrawn. He's hopeful that one day he'll get to Heaven too, that he'll get to hold Kaya's hand again even if it's only for another moment. He's hopeful he'll see all of those he misses. And yet, all this sudden town brings to mind is memories of Kaya, a woman who wouldn't have lived with the people here, not when she's sick and doesn't want to hurt anybody.
Zeno embraces the ache in his heart; it's all he can do now as he stands up and notices the others around him once again. People he doesn't feel he can smile and greet at the moment, so he turns away and heads back out into the world, wondering briefly what will become of the place they used to call home, many, many years from now.